


Lucifer Meta: Sin and the Devil

by XWingAce



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Meta, Other, Yay discussion, from tumblr, word vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-03 08:21:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12744576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XWingAce/pseuds/XWingAce
Summary: Various meta posts from Tumblr that needed to be archived elsewhere. Deals with the nature of sins and sinners, and Lucifer's backstory. Chapters are mostly independent metas of each other.





	1. Sinners

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I went on a bit of a meta spree over on Tumblr recently. It's a bit hard to keep a good archive there for me, so here it is, all together.
> 
> Meta is there for discussion, so please feel free :)

We’ve now seen two humans return to life from Hell: Malcolm Graham and Charlotte Richards.

Outwardly, they responded very differently – Malcom openly embracing hedonism even more, just diving deeper into the sins that led him into hell in the first place, while Charlotte initially just goes into denial and tries to live her life as if Hell never happened.

But there are a lot of similarities, too, and a lot of the differences in their reactions can also be attributed to the _way_ they came back from Hell.

Malcolm was explicitly brought back by Amenadiel – to kill Lucifer. He was never anything other than a sinner, he knew he’d been in Hell from the start and he didn’t want to go back. While Charlotte returned from hell because her body, now healed and healthy again, was available for her on earth. She intially didn’t realise she’d really been in Hell and had to be nudged into accepting that was the case.

Once Charlotte accepts that she was in Hell, and she doesn’t want to go back, we do actually start seeing some similar motives behind her actions and Malcolm Graham’s. Neither of them ever wants to go back to Hell.

For Malcolm, this starts out as following Amenadiel’s orders, because he believes Amenadiel can keep him out. Once Lucifer tells him Amenadiel can’t help him and gives him the coin that will get him out of Hell again, Malcolm embraces his sins and just sets out to do more of them – including getting rid of anyone who might be able to stop him. In the end Lucifer manages to stop him anyway, and back to Hell he goes.

Charlotte, when Lucifer tells her that Hell is real and that, so stay out of it, she should try to stop sinning, instead tries to absolve her sins. She goes about it very much wrongly, but at least she’s trying. Lucifer stops her before she goes too far, and she gets another shot at redemption. Quite possibly with Lucifer there to guide her.

I wonder about the third sinner in Lucifer’s vicinity: Dan. He’s in a different situation than Malcolm and Charlotte because he’s never actually died and gone to hell. But he’s definitely on a second chance, here.

He was a corrupt cop like Malcolm. He killed a man in cold blood and concealed that fact from everyone. And while he doesn’t go to Hell, he does go through a metaphorical one – his marriage falters and he loses the spotlight in the precinct to his wife and her, ah, weird new partner. And that’s before Malcolm comes back and forces him back into the corruption.

But Dan shows himself worthy of redemption when he decides to come clean to clear Lucifer’s name and condemn Malcolm. Even though he has nothing to gain by it at this point. It costs him his career, in fact, and the marriage he was just getting a glimpse of hope at saving. But he gets new chances, and he takes them. Especially once Lucifer stops him from enacting his frustrations fueled by Azrael’s blade. He even in some ways becomes an example to Lucifer, first, and later also Amenadiel. He takes up with Mum-as-Charlotte and seems to soften even her. The fact that he has a relationship already with Charlotte Richards, even if _she_ doesn’t know it at the moment, might help save her, too.

He’s pretty pivotal for your average douche, is Dan.


	2. The Nature of Sin

I discussed a few sinners in the _Sinners_ chapter, but what we didn’t really get from those people were their exact sins.

So what constitutes sin in the Lucifer-verse?

From what we see in episode 2.13 with the antagonist and Lucifer himself, and what is later heavily implied in 3.05 with Charlotte, feeling guilty of something can get you into Hell. So really, anything you feel guilty about can land you into Hell.

But Mum was thrown into Hell even though she wasn’t feeling guilty about anything, and Lucifer seems able to tell that certain people will end up in Hell. It also seems lacking in… some form of Divine justice if, just because you believe you’ve done nothing wrong, you end up in Heaven while being a despicable person (the real psychopaths rarely believe they did anything wrong). So I’m saying there is probably a judgment process that can also lead to people being locked in Hell, regardless of their beliefs in their own wrongdoing.

What would they need to have done to get that result?

Let’s start with the assumption that Lucifer would not knowingly do anything that led innocent people into Hell. He’s vehement enough that he never makes anyone do evil, and he dislikes Hell enough, too. Why would he guide anyone there, if he’s not the Devil he is made out to be?

We can turn that around. He might be acting in such a fashion to reduce the sense of guilt in the people he gathers around him, thereby reducing their chances to end up in Hell.

In that case, we can rule out most of the mortal sins as actual _sins_ in the Lucifer verse. Lust and gluttony he embraces and happily seems to encourage, he’s prideful (of his word and reputation), wrathful (toward his Father) and although he might deny it, there’s more than a little envy in evidence of humanity in general and any man who catches Chloe’s eye in particular. Yet Hell hath no grip on him until he kills his brother – and feels guilty about it.

The one mortal sin we don’t really see Lucifer engage in much is sloth – he might not have enjoyed his task as God’s punisher, but he carried it out for aeons. His lifestyle might seem leisurely to some, but you can’t deny it is _active_. And he throws himself into police work with some gusto.

  * You could argue that his regular and vocal protests that a case is ‘boring’ falls under sloth, but… well he still persists, doesn’t he?
  * In fact, the one time he seems to have given in to sloth is when he truly abandoned his duties to Hell.



The interesting difference between sloth and the other mortal sins is that while most of them are the result of an _excess_ of love for something/someone, sloth is the result of a lack of it. Let’s keep that in mind for later.

Killing someone, even if you’re only ordering the death, is almost certainly a sin. Lucifer seems pretty sure that Jimmy Barnes will end up in Hell, as he does the person who actually shot Delilah. And yet, there are some killings Lucifer will deem justified – usually ones where the victim has directly been harmed to a severe degree (he defends the girl in 2.08 and suggests leaving the killer be initially in 3.03). Rape being one of the main forms of harm eligible for this, although not always. In 1.04 he defends Carver Cruz from the girl he used and then abandoned, saying he deserves a lot of sex-related diseases, but not death. 

It’s arguable that it wasn’t rape Carver committed, only adultery… or, on the other hand, Carver has since fallen in love with the same girl, which may be a partially redeeming characteristic regardless of what he did. Then again, her actions in 1.04 brand Lindsay a sinner, leaving Lucifer ready to punish her. So even the intent to kill is a sin to some extent, if not repented.

There’s one other case where Lucifer doesn’t seem too rushed to punish a murderer – catch him, stop him, yes. But not punish. And that’s on 2.06 – the murderer kills out of grief and guilt because his wife – the love of his life – is dead. There we are with that love again. Oh, and he feels guilty because he wasn’t there for her – there’s sloth, too.

Of course, the department Chloe works for is Homicide, so we’re going to be seeing a lot of killers. Let’s see if we can find more clues elsewhere, too.

Lucifer has a… thing… against organised religion, that seems to coincide with an extreme dislike of hypocrisy. He won’t attack a priest directly, but he’ll definitely keep looking for the gaps in their beliefs (look at how Lucifer responds to the false preacher in 1.02 and 1.12, and how he treats Father Frank until he learns the priest is actually as good as he seems to be). In the case of the preacher in 1.02, it is definitely the hyprocrisy that sets Lucifer off. In 1.09, he references the still-fairly-recent scandals of Catholic priests sexually abusing young children, especially boys. There we are with rape again, as well as the extreme hypocrisy of forbidding extramarital/homosexual love to the general population while engaging in a dark version of it.

What does hypocrisy mean? Lying about your own motives and denying your own desires – likely to inspire guilt? Lucifer dislikes lying in general, too.

He also has a thing against rules and authority. Especially rules that don’t make sense to him (rule against swearing, anyone?), and yet, Dad’s rule against Angels killing humans? Not even a question that he’ll follow it. Right up to the point where he actually, briefly, truly believes himself to be Evil.

What does organised religion do? Tell people what the rules are to be 'good’ people – how to go to Heaven.

I’ve been working up to it, a statement that’s come out a few times already in various metas by me and others. Lucifer, really, is all about choice and free will. He’ll even give up Chloe for it, once he found out she was seemingly put there just for him.

  * Lies – ensure that whoever is being lied to can’t make an informed choice.
  * Authoritarian rules: Limiting the free will of others for no good reason.
  * Killing: Death is the end of choices and of free will. It is also robbing people of the chance to redeem themselves – we’ve seen it’s all but impossible to do so in Hell itself, especially without help.
  * Rape: Do I really need to go here?



Those definitely seem to be the sins as far as Lucifer is concerned.

We have another punishment we might derive a Divine definition of a sin from. We also have the reverse, a divine reward that might indicate a Good deed from the Devil.

I’m talking about wings, of course. Amenadiel loses his after his release of Malcolm leads to Mum’s escape. Lucifer gains his after he finds a way to peace between the two Divine entities.

Amenadiel was tasked to guard the gates of Hell after Lucifer abandons his throne. Instead, what does he do? He not only abandons that task, he lies to Linda to gain information about Lucifer and he sets a hellbound soul free… and those actions lead directly to the deaths of *counts* three people and threaten a war in Heaven. Some example of sloth, indeed.

Lucifer doesn’t want to hurt his other siblings, and he doesn’t want to see his mother hurt, either. And yet he’s trying to stop her killing everyone through circumstances that she is no longer able to control. He is arguing out of love. We see him say it, too -- about Charlotte. She may have done a lot of things wrong, but she was acting out of love. 

And that may be the greatest redeeming factor, ever.


	3. Jedi Truths and Selective Omissions

Lucifer, for all his protestations and desires to the contrary, lies. He might call it ‘not telling the whole truth’, or ‘bluffing’ or ‘selective omisson’, but the end result is to conceal the truth. Oddly enough, he seems to lie more to Chloe than to anyone else. Look at him unloading on the random model in 3.05 where he wouldn’t talk to Chloe about the exact same thing, for example.

I do love the way Lucifer lies, with his carefully truthful statements that leave out all the important information. It’s a little bit like all the stories about fairies who are unable to lie. Anything they say is true…. from a certain point of view. Lucifer does the same thing.

Now, some of this selective omission seems to be motivated by “Dad’s rules” – Lucifer seems fairly unwilling in most cases to provide absolute proof of the divine or the demonic to innocents, either by showing his face or by letting his wings get out into the world. He’s less concerned about keeping those secrets to miscreants, though. I guess that could come back to Lucifer not wanting to condemn innocents to hell by confirming the presence of Heaven and Hell and causing feelings of guilt for any perceived sins committed in ignorance. Which, for people Lucifer feels deserve it, is the desired result and so showing his face there can’t do harm.

He makes no secret of the fact he’s the Devil, though. To anyone, anywhere. And yet that is taken as either a lie or a delusion by most people. Including Chloe.

Chloe is not someone Lucifer has tried to conceal his true nature from, not really. In S1, he challenges her to shoot him, to prove that he can’t be killed. In S2, he’s telling her to test his blood which should prove his angelic nature, and in S3 he was actually prepared to show his face.

  * S1 post-episode 4 is when Lucifer’s lies of ommission really start showing up. This is in fact also the episode where he admits he doesn’t always tell the whole truth. Before that, he’d pretty much blurt out whatever was going on, even on the celestial side of things. Even if he does it in such a way Chloe still doesn’t believe it. (“I guess that’s easier to believe than my angelic brother freezing time while I plucked a bullet out of the air”). Afterward, he gets cagier about it. Because Chloe clearly doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t believe, and he can’t prove to her that there is something there to believe. So he tries to respect her choice in the matter.
  * At the start of S2, he’s completely open about looking for his mother, but then Chloe throws away his blood without testing it and the situation with Charlotte/Mum turns out to be more complicated than Lucifer initially thought – so he stops talking about that, too. He can talk about his mother, but Chloe won’t believe the supernatural parts of that either, so Lucifer doesn’t say anything about them.
  * And in S3 then, after Linda has convinced him that coming clean completely is the way to go… he can’t. Right then and there, he was prepared to risk a similar reaction from Chloe as he intially got from Linda. Instead he got a much harder rejection because Chloe just saw Lucifer, once again, be weird instead of honest. Small wonder he fell even further into despair and identity crisis.



The other person Lucifer lies to, is himself. I’m giving Amenadiel props for that observation. Some things Lucifer just won’t admit to himself – and if he can’t admit them to himself, he’s not going to speak them out loud either. Whether you call this lying or just ‘being mistaken’ is up for debate. But Lucifer lies to himself mainly about his feelings for Chloe and about his relation to his family. You know, the important stuff. Chloe is an odd contradiction of a very rational person with very strong and especially accurate instincts. She’d learned that her instincts are usually right, but she will never stop trying to find the rational explanation, too. It’s what makes her such a good detective. She is perceptive enough to see the actual truth of some of these lies-to-himself, which just reinforces her belief that Lucifer is lying about the rest, too.

Don’t get me wrong. Chloe is fully justified in her reaction from her perspective. She has a partner she values despite his delusions. Ans yet he never actually seems to want to talk about anything important -- he turns it all into jokes or evasions. And then he runs off and marries someone else just as they finally seem to be getting close. But that’s because she doesn’t have the whole picture. She doesn’t have the whole picture because she doesn’t believe the bits Lucifer has been telling her because he can’t prove them to her. Which means he can’t fill in the rest of the picture either. At least, not until he finds a way to put it into words.

In short, Chloe needs to find out already, dammit. We give Lucifer a lot of stick for not talking to Chloe, and some of it is deserved. But quite a lot of it is also on Chloe claiming not to want to know whenever it really comes to it. And with Lucifer unable to influence her expression of what she really wants, all he has to go on is what she says, and respect that. Neither Lucifer nor Chloe is blameless in their communication breakdown. They are both trying to be respectful of the other’s wishes and boundaries, and it’s not working. Someone needs to take a leap of faith and break them to go further. Circumstances are making it very difficult for that someone to be Lucifer. But Lucifer won’t be able to stop the lies of omission, and start telling the truth to himself. Not until he can tell the whole truth to Chloe and have it be believed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks tot Titc and pellaaearien for helping me clarify a few things in this one :)


	4. Lucifer's Apartment

Let’s talk a little more about the metaphor of Lucifer’s apartment in 3.06. Because it’s Lucifer himself, in his absence.

It’s accessible to everyone, and almost fully open-plan. The immediate eyecatchers are the piano and the booze. But littered around the apartment are also examples of literature throughout the millennia, with inscriptions that are pretty clear if anyone could/cares to read them (like we see with Linda picking up that Hamlet). There’s even that stained glass about the temptation of Eve, right next to the bedroom.

Lucifer is not hiding the ‘big’ truth… you just have to be willing to see it.

But locked away in his bedroom, where people who get that far are much more likely to be preoccupied with something else, there is a locked safe.

It is hidden behind a garish, almost childish cover, and yet nobody but Lucifer really knows the cost to acquire that cover.

And the safe contains… nothing but a token of his feelings.


	5. Lucifer and his Wings

I’ve been thinking about an alternative interpretation of Lucifer cutting his wings off, and reason(s) for gaining them back. What if he’s literally regaining his ability to spread his wings, to grow again beyond the ‘human’ life he’s limited himself to?

Angels were created with their wings. As the children of the Divine, they are expressions of love, given the whole universe (but mainly Heaven) to roam.

Lucifer, after his rebellion, is excluded from _Heaven_ , but not anywhere else. He’s not confined to Hell, as we’ve also seen he’s been to earth on at least one other occasion. It’s also apparent that he has to at least have visited before otherwise how could 'deals with the Devil’ ever have become a thing?

Not only is he not confined to Hell… he is set to rule over it. Although there is now a place he cannot go, there is a burden placed upon him to care for those his Father loved and who have abused that love. As most of these souls realise – because when they come to him and he asks “what do you desire?”, the answer is “punish me”.

This is a heavy burden to bear, and he needs his wings to help him bear it.

Eventually, though, the burden becomes too much. He loses all the care he had for these souls, and he abandons them. Abandons Hell, and goes to Earth.

But Earth is a tiny, tiny place compared to Heaven and Hell. With nowhere else to go, Lucifer feels confined. The weight of the wings on his back is on the one hand a restriction of his movements, here in this tiny place, and on the other a reminder of the burden he wanted to leave behind.

So he cuts them off. And this reduces him far enough that he can fit in to the life in LA, drinking and singing and making minor deals… for money, for mortal favors only. Not a care in the world.

Still, occasionally, he can’t help caring. The little singer with the name that stands for robbing a man of his power, for example. She’s so sweet-voiced, so beautiful. So he nudges her career along. Because she deserves better than the lights of Lux.

It gets her killed.

Then there is that curious detective. Another bright spark glittering through the smokey atmosphere at Lux. Someone he can’t influence, how about that? And then his meddling almost gets her killed, too. This, he can’t countenance. He… interferes as Angels shouldn’t. Because he cares, when he shouldn’t.

The caring doesn’t stop there, either. The detective cares so much, that Lucifer is forced to care, too, at least a little more. And he does start caring more. First the detective, then the doctor and the daughter. Then even, Father forbid, the Ex, the precinct, the city…

And then his Mother comes back, ready to storm Heaven. And yet, even She is worth protecting. She loved him, once. But so did his brothers and sisters. They don’t deserve the war his Mother would bring.

He finds a different way.

And at that point, small as he is right then, Lucifer stands as protector, not (just) of Earth, but of the Heavens himself. He has room to grow again, and so he does.

But he’s gotten used to being small. Comfortable. And cutting his wings off worked before. So he tries cutting them off again.

But he cares now, about too many people. He needs to spread his wings, so he can take everyone he wants to protect under them. They grow back. Every time.


	6. What the Hell

AKA ‘Lucifer is asking the wrong question’.

As Lucifer admitted once again last episode, the way you get into Hell is by feeling guilty, not necessarily by the sin itself.

From the episodes in Hell we’ve been shown, the torture that is administered when Lucifer isn’t bestowing his personal attention, very much seems to be reliving the moment of your greatest guilt over and over again. I must admit as psychological tortures go, that’s a good one, but… it’s still a bit weird.

What is guilt, anyway? I think guilt is knowing, deep down, that you did something wrong, and wishing you could do better. That sounds an awful lot like 'Knowledge of Good and Evil’, doesn’t it?

It’s been heavily implied in the show that Lucifer did give Eve the apple – possibly even that _this_ was his moment of rebellion.

So, by giving Eve the apple, Lucifer caused humanity to have knowledge of Good and Evil, and thereby to be able to feel guilt and be barred from Heaven/Paradise.

But what if there is a way to work through that guilt – to find peace with the act or to find forgiveness – not from anyone else, but to yourself? That would make it possible again for the shriven soul to enter Heaven.

That’s what Purgatory is for. In it, the guilty have the chance to relive their 'sins’, put them right and so atone. Lucifer, having caused the need for Purgatory, is sent to watch over it. This is intended to have him take responsibility for his actions.

Lucifer was the brightest of the Angels. In the show, it’s implied he was also the one that guarded Eden (he’s the only one who can wield the sword that guarded Eden… so whose sword was it?) – that would be a task only given to someone whose love for these curious humans was second only to Dad himself. And only someone who loved Eve (in whatever sense of the word) wouldn’t have wanted to deny her knowledge that she desired.

With an Angel so bright, so clever, and so loving to guide them, surely any souls ending up in Purgatory could be guided through their guilt quickly, so they could pass on to Paradise.

But poor Lucifer may be bright and he may be clever and he may be loving, but he is also oh, so fallible. He arrives in Purgatory and he sees the souls coming in. He wants to give these poor guilty souls what they want, so he asked the question he also asked in Eden, whenever he encountered the humans. 'What do you desire?’

But these are not the innocents of Eden. These are the guilty, who know that they did wrong. What they desire, right now, is punishment.

So Lucifer gives it to them. And doesn’t stop giving it. He starts resenting his Father, for giving him this responsibility – all anyone ever asks for is torture. So he turns himself into a torturer, and the beliefs of all the souls asking for torture grant him an appearance to match.

Purgatory fills up and expands, and the souls, unable to work through their guilt, can’t leave. It turns into Hell.

If only Lucifer had asked “How can I help (to relieve your guilt)?” instead…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a Catholic by upbringing, but I'm not at all religious and not necessarily very *knowledgeable* about the precise Catholic interpretations of all of this. I'm mainly working off myths, legends and just pure interpretation of what we've been given in the TV Show, combined with the sincere _hope_ that, if there is a god, they are benevolent.


	7. Alignments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of thanks to [ariaadagio](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ariaadagio) for writing the fic that inspired this meta, and [Skaoi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/skaoi) for bringing up lots of good points during the Tumblr discussion.

I’ve written quite a few of these metas now, from separate but related points of view. They might not all lead to the same conclusions, but each thought informs the next.

Part of why I write the metas is to get my thoughts straight on the origin stories. How does Lucifer relate to his origins, and what can that tell me about where this story is going? A big part of his origins is his Father, of course. So oddly enough a show about the Devil gets me thinking about God a lot.

I’ve been reading @ariaadagio ’s excellent fic [And There Was Light](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12233841/chapters/27794010). In Chapter 4, they have Ella reference the [D&D alignment chart](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterAlignment) (warning, link goes to TVTropes), classifying Chloe and Lucifer on it. I respectfully disagreed with their classification, and we got into a friendly discussion about it. Classifying non-D&D characters into the D&D alignments is always going to be an imperfect fit, so arguments are always possible and potentially endless. But it inspired me as a different way of thinking about the relationship between Lucifer and his Dad. So I thought I’d write up my interpretation.

I try to keep it all in the context of the show. My upbringing and background knowledge informs everything, but for this show, the Bible does not equal canon. Anything described in it may have happened, but it might give a completely different view than the actual events. Or we may have missed or misinterpreted things. Of course, the show doesn’t give us that much about Dad himself, so I’ll be needing to draw some information from the biblical stories anyway.

So, let’s start with Dad. In my original comment to @ariaadagio, I classified Old-Testament God as Lawful Neutral, with modern-day, hands-off God being True Neutral. A God that doesn’t speak, doesn’t command, barely even judges (people don’t go to Hell because of His judgments), who only acts through a very light-handed guidance to proxies (OK, perhaps a bit less light-handed as concerns Lucifer… but he’s still not expliticly telling Lucifer to do anything), that seems like a True Neutral to me. And I also think that’s one of the few ways a deity that also believes that its charges should have free will can act.

Old-Testament God shows signs of Lawful, in the sense that he makes the laws, but that God is also… not terribly good, flooding the entire earth except for one ship full of people and animals, forcing Abraham to sacrifice his sons, etc, etc. A judging, commanding God is, Lawful, but probably not Good in a sense that we could understand. Not Evil, either, though. He doesn’t seem the type to be actively malicious, all the time. I’d say that that God is Lawful Neutral.

I’m even starting to doubt the Lawful, upon further consideration. He’s not particularly consistent in His punishments and rewards. He picks favourites and punishes others for the sins of their friends and family. As the originator of the whole universe – as the entity who makes the laws that everyone has to live by – could He even be Lawful? Wouldn’t that sort of Creator be Chaotic almost by default?

Whether Lawful or Chaotic, something happened to cause an alignment shift, there. And I think it was the clash with Lucifer, and that is why we’re seeing what we’re seeing on the show.

So let’s consider Lucifer. My issue there is with timescales. The Lucifer we see in the show is undeniably acting pretty Chaotic to our eyes. He’s all over the place by human standards. His lifestyle seems the epitome of selfish fun without any regard for the rules of society.

But Lucifer isn’t human. He’s an (Arch)angel, billions of years old and created differently. Human laws only apply to him if he chooses to let them. He could be following completely different laws, or a completely different moral code, and be keeping to that consistently. Leaving Hell and his duties behind is a recent phenomenon - barely a blip in his lifespan. It could (will, that’s why the show is there!) turn out to be a significant move. But where it concerns Lucifer’s inherent alignment, in this argument, his behaviour on the show doesn’t tell us everything.

Lucifer likes his free will. He likes, or at least respects, other’s free will as well. That could be argued as a Chaotic attribute (@ariaadagio does), but to me it looks like the source of the conflict between him and Dad.

As a feature of their creation, angels are subject to the will of their Father – when he speaks, they obey. His word is Law, and they must obey. Would that make them Lawful, purely by the fact of their existence? They will hold to the Laws Father set, regardless. Especially Lucifer/Samael, as God’s punisher (enforcer of His laws!!) even before he rebelled.

So I’d class Lucifer as inherently, originally, and still, Lawful Neutral. The laws/belief system that he holds to now puts free will and the freedom of choice for everyone above everything. That’s not a very easy law to follow, though, and of course in his situation, human laws don’t apply. The laws Lucifer is (trying to) adhere to are active on a different level. 

Dad creates/sires the angels, subject to his will. Then He goes and creates humanity, also in His image. And the Host, or at least Lucifer, is told ‘give them what they want’ - Lucifer is given the power of desire. Humanity, unlike the angels, have free will – they can want things that Dad doesn’t want them to want. And Dad put a tree in the Garden, that he told the humans not to touch, to not eat the fruit. But of course they want to. So what is Lucifer to do?

This makes no sense. Why give something free will if you then set up groundless rules of what they can and can’t do! Then become angry when the beings with free will don’t do what you want them to do. Even administer punishment. What’s the point of having this freedom?

This is Lawful (You set the rules, You gave them free will - let them exercise it!) clashing with Chaotic (I want them to do this - if they don’t do that, I’ll punish them).

And then Lucifer gets punished for giving Eve what she wanted. Of course he rebelled at that.

Even after his rebellion, when Dad excluded him from Heaven and sent him to oversee Purgatory/Hell, Lucifer stayed there for millennia. There wasn’t anything keeping him there. We’ve been shown/told that he takes excursions. Lucifer doesn’t necessarily follow human laws, or those of organised religion. But Lucifer still obeys the rules Dad set for the behaviour of angels with regard to humans (no killing! Keep the absolute proof of the Divine out of human hands!). The one example we have of that, and we see how strongly it affects Lucifer, is 'no killing humans'. It's not even a _question_ for most of the series that Lucifer won't kill -- right up to the moment where he briefly actually believes himself Evil. When later, he wants to do so, in further defiance of his Father... he can't bring himself to do it. He’s also set himself the rule to speak no untruth, and he keeps to that rigidly (although the other phrasing ‘I don’t lie’… is a bit more open to interpretation). He’ll still seek out those that need to be punished, if they are guilty of crimes by the definition of someone favouring free will – limiting the free will of others through murder or rape.

And that selfish fun? Is it really so selfish? Pretty much every time we’ve seen his lovers, we’ve also seen that Lucifer puts tremendous effort into making sure they have a good time – even if it’s not something he’d enjoy so much (Ball-pit at Chuck-E-Cheese?). With Lux, he provides a space where people can enjoy themselves with no judgment (albeit at $20 for an appletini). So every night, he’s providing pleasure to others – giving them what they want.

Then there’s the quid-pro-quo aspect of the ‘Deal with the Devil’. Lucifer is always upfront about the fact that if he does you a favour, you owe him a favour in return. That could be classed as a selfish, for-profit use of his power and influence. But it’s also a direct opposition to God’s ambiguous rules that should be followed without any promise or hope of reward, except the vague image of Heaven. Especially since (as Lucifer well knows) most of the humans – anyone who feels guilt – won’t go there anyway. “If you ask this of me, know that something will be asked of you in return.” People can _choose_ to make a deal - they know exactly what they’re getting.

Lucifer is currently hurt and feeling resentful of his father, though. Especially after regaining his wings. That’s drawn him more into himself and so he can end up acting Chaotic without intending to be. So this is where Chloe comes in. Steadfast, Good Chloe. 

We've so far mainly considered Lucifer and his Father, but we should also consider the woman who is influencing Lucifer to such a degree. She's unquestionably Good. Ariaadagio classifies her as Lawful Good, being a police officer and a strict but loving parent. But she could also be seen as Neutral Good -- yes, she's a police officer and she is serving the public and the greater good in that capacity, but she's not afraid to bend or break the rules if that will get her better or faster results. So either (part of) the attraction between Chloe and Lucifer is their Lawfullness calling to each other, or Chloe's Neutrality is meant as an example for Lucifer.

Because Lucifer is missing something. For someone with his level of power – he influences peoples choices and free will just by existing around them. Look at the automatic attraction that every woman and most men have toward him, if nothing else. That isn’t natural and in the absence of it, they might have made entirely different choices.

That seems like something that Dad realised a while ago and started acting on. – About 2000 years ago, maybe? So now, instead of an interfering God, we have one who doesn’t directly answer prayers anymore, who doesn’t punish anyone, and who barely even speaks to his Angels. Any action he still takes is expressed cryptically. Any choices people make, any actions they take, they make of their own volition, instead because He asks/commands. Perhaps He realised it, eventually, because of Lucifer’s rebellion.

But now Lucifer needs to realise it too. And that’s where Chloe comes in. Apart from drawing him back to Lawful/Neutral and showing him Good in a human interpretation, she also limits his power. She limits it to such an extent that some of his powers are negligible while Lucifer is in her presence. He gets to see how people act in the absence of his influence, to see true free will. Is this to make Lucifer realise that the kind of active interest he is currently taking is in fact also limiting humanity’s free will?

Lucifer feels his Father is evil for limiting his and humanity's free will, and must therefore be punished. All the while Dad has become persuaded that Lucifer had a point. But he can’t acknowledge that actively without negating the point. It’s a proper tragedy.


	8. Acceptance

It’s been getting clearer for a few weeks now that Lucifer is losing his powers in a more general sense than just being vulnerable while around Chloe and his abilities not working on her.

I mean, really – he’s unable to charm, instantly, the whole ‘Top Meet’ crew? He has to work to get Mac to talk? Or even before that – it’s Dan who is the handsome detective that Kim’s roommate wants a picture with. That doesn’t scan with ‘how do I turn this thing off’ Lucifer from S2. He still gets by on confidence alone, but there’s something missing, there.

And in last week’s episode, OK, maybe even the Devil can’t punch through a few feet of steel… but that door was a lot less than that. He had enough strength to break the chain/lock, but that seems to have been the limit.

And I’m with the people who find the theory that Lucifer has to look someone in the eye for his 'what do you desire’ power to work silly… but maybe if he’s less powerful, it only works like that?

So here’s a theory… what if he’s losing his powers, not because he’s actually losing them, but because he is rejecting their source so hard he’s subconsciously rejecting everything else as well? 

Lucifer hates having his wings. He has stopped cutting them off, but he’s still adamantly refusing to use them. He’s turned himself away from them completely, because they do not define who he is. They are not his. He still had power after _cutting off_ his wings, but when he cut them off, there was scar tissue left behind that he accepted as being of himself. With the wings still attached, even those parts of them he had accepted previously, he now rejects.

But they are a part of him. As part of the Divine being, they have power in themselves. And they are linked to Lucifer using his powers. When Lucifer was trying to seduce a woman in the first (second?) episode this season, the wings came out. When he was angry enough that normally his Devil face would have shown up in S301, his wings pop out instead. They are a different manifestation of what they used to look like, but they are still him.

And Lucifer is turning away from them. By limiting himself to never ever using his wings or anything they give, he is also turning away from the power(s) he still had after cutting them off. Because he could never have removed them completely. But now he is rejecting all they represent and that includes all his powers. And he doesn’t even mind that much, generally – until he is threatened, or until the detective is threatened.

So I think Lucifer does need to accept his wings… and maybe he’ll gain control over his Devil face that way again too.


	9. Cain and Lucifer: Parallels

Marcus Pierce is revealed to be the mythical Cain. One of the first humans. The first to commit a murder, cursed for that crime to walk the earth for an eternity. And reviled for it in myth and story.

That is what Lucifer tells us. Anything else, at this point, is speculation using popcultural background knowledge, the actual Bible, or the DC Comics universe that Lucifer the TV show draws inspiration from. One thing we can pretty much assume will also be the case in the show, because all three of those sources agree mentioned above agree: the murder Cain committed was of his brother, Abel.

There’s quite a few parrallels here to Lucifer, just from what we really know in the show.

Like Lucifer, Cain is old. He’s lived through (most of) humanity’s history.   
Like Lucifer, Cain has seen some of humanity’s worst excesses - though from different vantage points   
Like Lucifer, Cain is mainly known by his reputation Like Lucifer, Cain is reviled for that reputation   
Like Lucifer, Cain killed his brother

Extrapolating from ‘everyone knows’, we can go a little further. 

Cain killed his brother because he was jealous* that he was more in God’s favour   
Cain hid his brother’s body after the murder, and pretended he didn’t know what had happened.   
Cain was thrown out of Eden for his acts, as well as the immortality curse

Like Lucifer, Cain committed the act that led to his downfall out of jealousy – of humanity, in Lucifer’s case   
Like Lucifer, Cain was exiled from his home after the act.

These parallels could very well lead to Lucifer and Cain getting on fairly well now that the air is cleared. Lucifer might see a kindred spirit in Cain, because of all the abovementioned similarities.

But there are also significant differences.

Lucifer committed his rebellion out of jealousy, yes – but he rebelled by giving humans something they wanted. ** When Lucifer killed his brother, it was to protect his mother and the detective, a desperation move. Cain committed the ultimate sin – robbing another of his free will by killing him, out of jealousy.

Lucifer, after killing his brother, makes no effort to hide this from his family. He is full of remorse. Cain attempted to hide Abel’s body and his act. Not a remorseful response.

While the similarities are mostly results of their actions, the actions and motivations for them that lead to these similarities are fundamentally different. I think it’s going to be these differences that lead to a confrontation between Cain and Lucifer. Even if he doesn’t turn out to be the Big Bad this season, those differences - if the Cain legends are interpreted that way on the show – will make ultimately make him an antagonist.

*Strictly speaking, this is not explicitly mentioned in the show. But the way Lucifer talks about Dad 'spending more time with his toys than his children’ pretty heavily implies it, so I’m going with it.   
**There are stories, even the comics, talking about a war in Heaven after Lucifer’s rebellion – but if I look at the way Lucifer reacted after killing Uriel, I have trouble believing that he had been the cause of the deaths of other angels before. I don’t believe that was the case in the show.


	10. The Blindness of God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The name ‘Samael’ can be interpreted different ways. ‘The Venom of God is one, but ‘The Blindness of God’ is another.

The name ‘Samael’ can be interpreted different ways. ‘The Venom of God is one, but ‘The Blindness of God’ is another.

Lucifer is said to have gained his title because he hung the stars at his Father’s command – ‘let there be light’. So before that, there was darkness – God was blind. Name or title, Samael the lightbringer lives up to it.

And from a metaphorical perspective, even if we posit God as omnipotent and omniscient – then there is still a way in which God is blind.

Even if one knows everything, about anything, anywhere… what part of that knowledge you bring to bear at any given time is situational. Anyone observing anything, even if they can potentially observe everything – still has a perspective. And this means that from their perspective, some of the aspects they may want to observe are obscured. Something else is blocking the view from that angle. From this perspective, to those objects, they are blind.

Even if God can know/see everything. What part of that knowledge or image actually registers depends very much on what He’s looking at. And He may see more than we do, but he is still looking at something specific.

Lucifer is made to cast light on the obscured aspects. By giving him a different perspective. Quite possibly a diametrically opposed one. Because you can’t see the back of the moon from the front.

No wonder Lucifer and his Father will never see things the same way. He was deliberately created not to.


End file.
